Bittersweet Tale after the quake at Berkeley Rep

Tony Award-winning director Frank Galati helms this simple tale of life in the wake of earth-shaking disaster. A timid man woos an old flame, enchanting her anxious daughter with whimsical bedtime stories of a six foot frog's fight to save Tokyo. Although a storyteller can't dispel the world's woes, he can teach a child--and himself--how to face fear.

Reviews & Ratings

A very interesting and imaginative storyline. Simple by interesting set. A mostly strong cast.

The docent presentation an hour before the show helped explain why the story was so imaginative.

The seating was a little bad, up against the wall on the side, half way up. Most of the action took place on the thrust stage, so the seating was just fine for that, with the blocking encompassing all seats. But the musicians and some of the action took place behind an artificial proscenium, so I never saw the koto player and some dramatic events. Same problem as the previous Berkley Rep play I saw, Argonautica.

I think it is racist to cast any Asian actors as stand-ins for Japanese characters -- the assumption seems to be that any Asian person can represent another because, you know, they all look alike. Why not...continued

I know people who are big fans of Harumi Murakami's books. I have never read his work so I really didn't know what to expect. In fact, I really didn't know what the play was about other than it had something to do with the Kobe earthquake so I...continued

Quotes & Highlights

“Galati skillfully interweaves two evocative short stories and a haunting cello-and-koto score in a visually stunning, slyly comic and subtly affecting, multifaceted 80-minute reflection on fear, love, loneliness and the transformative powers of art.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“an elegant, economic, gently hypnotic piece of theater…all the elements reflect and satisfy a yearning for solace and safety.” —New York Times
“Beautifully introspective… Exquisitely chiseled performances give the play a sense of delicacy that grounds Murakami’s leaps into the fantastical…” —San Jose Mercury News

Description

Director Frank Galati won two Tony Awards for The Grapes of Wrath. Writer Haruki Murakami, author of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore, earned Japan’s equivalent of the Pulitzer. Now the two talents collide in after the quake, a simple, gentle tale of life in the wake of earth-shaking disaster. A timid man woos an old flame, enchanting her anxious daughter with whimsical bedtime stories of a six foot frog’s fight to save Tokyo. In this poignant new play, we see that a storyteller can’t dispel the world’s woes, but he can teach a child—and himself—how to face fear.

Based on “Honey Pie” and “Superfrog Saves Tokyo” from the novel after the quake by Haruki Murakami

Adapted for the stage and directed by Frank Galati

Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s production in association with La Jolla Playhouse

Haruki Murakami became Japan’s most celebrated contemporary author after an epiphany at a baseball game convinced him he could write novels. His 13 award-winning books include Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. The two stories presented on our stage appeared in The New Yorker and GQ.

Frank Galati is renowned for transforming literary works into transcendent theatre. He won two Tony Awards—as adapter and director—for The Grapes of Wrath. He also directed the Broadway hit _Ragtime, _which turned E.L. Doctorow’s novel into a magical musical, and netted an Oscar nomination for his screenplay to Anne Tyler’s “Accidental Tourist.” This spring, he brings The Pirate Queen to Broadway.

About the Ticket Supplier: Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Known for its amazing and adventurous audience, the nonprofit has provided a home for emerging and established artists since 1968. With two stages and a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, Berkeley Rep premieres exhilarating new plays and reimagined classics. In the last five years alone, the company has helped send five shows to Broadway: Green Day’s American Idiot, Bridge & Tunnel, In the Next Room (or the vibrator play), Passing Strange and Wishful Drinking. Come see tomorrow’s plays today at Berkeley Rep.

Berkeley Rep operates two performance spaces: the Roda Theatre, a state-of-the-art 600-seat proscenium theatre, and the intimate, 400-seat Thrust Stage. The Theatre is located in the heart of downtown Berkeley’s arts district, just a half block from the Berkeley BART station, near lots of restaurants, cafe, pubs, and cool retailers.